Ivan's Angle: Sunday 9th August - Clevedon Club Match Paddock Lake Acorn Fishery

Monday, 10 August 2015

Sunday 9th August - Clevedon Club Match Paddock Lake Acorn Fishery

I made the decision late in the week to fish this match. There was a SW Super League practise match at Newbridge with a 10:00 draw fishing 12:00 - 17:00 but I decided against this as I did not want to get home to late. The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta was also on so I would have to pass traffic coming out of it whatever route I took.
I prepped for about 2 hours on the Saturday afternoon, just as well as the elastic on 3 of my 4 carp top kits had some wear and needed cutting back a bit. I tied 4 rigs for banded pellet and 1 paste rig. Sorted out pellets which I had already stored and that was it.
The draw was at 08:30 in the on site Cafe and there were plenty of anglers around made up of the SW Over 55's and disabled who were on the top lake and some other Bristol Club that we were sharing the Paddock with. Match Sectary Adie sorted out the pegs and we ended up with pegs 26 - 40 as there were 12 of us booked in. The other club had a good turn out so a fairly full lake. A small match the day before produced a top weight of just over 50lb so it was predicted it might be hard going.
At the draw I pull out peg 40 which is a bridge peg, never ever drew a bridge peg before and they have a bit of form. Adie was paying top 4 today, £60, £50, £40, £30 so a 1 in 4 chance of a pick up.

Peg 40 with Nick Harvey opposite on 5 and Rob Fogg on 4 over on the island

Also on the island was Mark the paste Walsh on peg 1 (Mark more or less lives on the venue) and Adie on peg 2. Peg 39 next to me was vacant but on peg 38 was loacl carp slayer Kev Perry.

No silvers pool as all the silvers have gone except for perch and tench. There were plenty of carp moving around so I set up a rig for the bottom of the far shelf with a pole pot for feeding micros through and a wide gape drennan 16 with a band on it. Inside rig for my left and right margins after Adie and Mark gave me some advice. Finally the paste rig for fishing down the the middle and against the bridge.

At 10:00 the all in was called and I fed the near side and middle with wetted 6mm before going across with an 8mm and dripped in mirco's. As expected the float dipped more or less straight away and an foul hooker was on, needless to say it came off. Next put in was the same and the pattern continued for about 30 minutes before a foul hooker caught on the outside of the gill was landed and a fish of around 4lb. I had a few more fustrations with lost fish. At around the 2 hour mark Kev shouts up and asks how many I have had. One I replied and so did he. Looking around I could not see that many had been catching on our part of the lake. I stopped fishing the far shelt and tried the middle wth the paste and had a bite straight away but missed it. I was feeding 6mm through the pole pot and was getting lots of liners so scaled down on the feed and the size of the paste and finally connected with a small carp. That's what I stuck to for the rest of the match although I had a look on the inside there were no indications. My fish were not big but from what I could see I was the only one putting a quanity of fish in the net.

At the all out at 16:00 Kev said he thought I had done enough to win.

Mark on peg 1 was first to weigh and although he did not have many fish they were munters, all caught on paste and the scales registered 75lb so I was not sure I had done enough. Next was Adie and again not many fish but big resulting in just over 71lb. Nick on peg 5 had 32lb 4oz. I was next and I had 3 nets in just to keep the small F1's apart and I lost count on the carp so played safe. My total was first called out at 73lb but then the maths were done again and I had 83lb 8oz. Kev just weighed under 60lb.

Weight sheets as follows: